Watched: The Dressmaker – how had I not seen it before? It was compulsory viewing for all Australians, but I must have been on shrimp-tossing duties that day. It made me want Kate Winslet to love me, the way she automatically and effortlessly fell in love with Liam Hemsworth. A bonus was that I have now collected all three Hemsworth’s, and one was by accident, I did not know that Stubbs in Westworld was Luke Hemsworth. But I have to be honest, the only Hemsworth performance I am concerned about is Thor: Ragnarok, because, fair dinkum, Taika Waititi meets Marvel is something to look forward to, and why didn’t I do better in life, why didn’t I do that – sorry. It is odd, I bet the people who watched and loved The Dressmaker back home were not the sort of people who normally watch cartoons, an by jingo, weren’t there a lot of cartoon characters in that film. Barry Otto was probably not born a cartoon character, but he has certainly evolved into one, and well done to him. Plus the film gave the extra survivalist knowledge of the relative virtues of diving into a silo of wheat, versus diving into a silo of sorghum. I did not know that fact, but I will not spoil it for you. But even the guy from House Husbands apparently knew. I still have no idea what a 41 year old and a 27 year old were doing going to school together, and Liam Hemsworth’s character must have been two when the defining incident of the film occurred, yet he was able to remember the activity in the playground vividly. Oh well, suspension of disbelief, and Judy Davis was bloody fantastic, yes she was.

Read: The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross, (well, that’s as good a link as any) and I have been tricked, but I knew it. Far out, I am an easy target. Years of watching the Paranormal Romance shelves spread and spread and spread in Galaxy Bookshop in Sydney, and complaining loudly about it (oh, look at that, there’s paranormal romance everywhere, its reproducing paranormally, oh, I’m hilarious), and here I am reading the stuff. BECAUSE IT IS. I mean, its not just that, but Alex and the Elf Princess, it sucked me in just like certain women of my vintage get sucked in by Mills and Boon, because, he is a nerd with no saving graces and no social skills, but because of inherent strength that only the exotic Elf Princess can see, he gets the girl anyway. And Tor says “Stross is clever in representing Alex’s helpless, under-socialized terror of women without giving the audience the sense that Alex is in the right about his weirdness”, and I say, fuck off Tor, that’s me, and just about every nerdy bloke I knew, knowing someone special had to be out there who would see the good inside underneath the hopelessly unsocialised exterior (hello Mrs Stevens – not you, Mum, the other one). And so why does it still warm my heart, why do I still need the nerdy guy to get the impossible girl – you know why, the same reason you have nightmares that you have to go back and sit that final maths exam again, because every single achievement since high school is a dream, you IMPOSTOR … sorry. I also like the shooting bits and the dragon bits and other bits. And this is why I do not do book reviews. (I like that there is a character who is a vicar, very generous and indeed diverse of the author, but I do not believe the bit at all where he does not pray because he does not want God to know what he is doing.)

Drunk: Hoegaarden Grand Cru: a lov – er – ly drop. Plus, what they say, at the link there.  Lov-er-ly. Available exclusively in Belgium, but the occasional bottle finds its way into the Netherlands … and into my heart.

Writing: Yes I am. And bad things are about to happen to Grandma. Meanwhile, while I am working on that, have a look here.